Waiting On The Lord

So many times the story God writes in our lives take years to get the fuller picture. We think we understand something and find out God had much bigger thoughts than what we even dreamed about. This is one of those situations in my husband, Al’s life. Here is his story.

I rented out my cabin in Montana. While I was in Indiana visiting family, my shop completely burned down. The cause was unknown. The loss was real.

I felt the Lord did not want me to rebuild on the ashes. As I worked out of a small mini barn doing my chainsaw carvings, I began to think about buying another property. I desired a main road front property to get my business out in the eyes of the public.

There was a piece of property that I set my eyes on, but did not have the money to make the purchase.

I was then offered a job in Indiana of carving animals for a carousel. When I completed that commitment, I figured I would have enough money to move forward with purchasing a road frontage property. The commitment took me 1 1/2 years to complete – longer than I expected.

Check out the Davis Mercantile in Shipshewana, IN. And here is a touch of history of the Carousel. I carved the outside ring of horses and other animals, another artist did the painting.

About this time some of my friends had asked me to plan a trip to Alaska and take them along to hunt moose. I had been to Alaska before hunting moose and this sounded like another fun trip to do. As time progressed I simply had no peace about making the trip – and no reason for not going except not feeling at peace about it. I finally told the rest of the group I could no go.

Again, in my own reasoning I thought maybe the Lord knew the money that would have been spent on the trip was needed for that road front property and my new carving shop.

An acquaintance needed help moving out to Montana, so I figured this would be the opportunity to look into making this purchase. (This was before I used internet or cell phones)

Arriving in Montana, the for sale sign was gone from the property I had been dreaming about and the new owners had construction on the sight. It was a death of my dream.

I returned to Indiana to finish my commitment of carving the carousel. While there I went to the Haiti Benefit auction to listen to the gospel singing groups that were there. While wandering through the booths that the missions set up to represent what they do in Haiti I stoped to talk to International Faith Missions. They were looking for young men to go and serve.

As the Lord had been doing a work in my heart, I met with the mission board the next day and agreed to go to Haiti. After completing my carvings I went to Haiti and was there for a little over 2 years.

Coming back to Montana I needed time to rest from the challenges on the mission field. I built a small shop on my property, and had peace about it. I continued to carve, working at building my business up again after being gone for several years.

I kept calling a widow who I met in Haiti…after awhile she said “Yes” and we got married. She owned a big shop. We lived in Ohio for 5 years.

While I enjoyed the big shop, the Lord also used this time to teach me a lot more about wood while I worked at Stull Woodworks.

Then we decided to move to Montana.

Moving back to my property, I knew I would be crammed into my little shop.

As we were on the road moving to Montana a friend called who owned a large shop on the same driveway as our property. His property was for sale – did I want it?

In my mind I wanted to shout “YES!”

But by now I was learning a bit to wait on the Lord and be sure I was in His will for my shop.

I told him I needed a couple of weeks to pray about it.

After praying my wife and I both had peace about purchasing that big shop.

Now I am enjoying a big shop – and seeing much more clearly with hindsight how the Lord has moved to make it happen. His ways and timing are so much bigger than mine.

I know I would have dreaded the drive every day into town if I had purchased that property I had my eyes on for so long. It also would have taken me away from my family more.

Not only does the Lord know us better than we do, His timing is also perfect. He knew I would go to Haiti and meet my wife, then live in Ohio. I did not need a shop as quickly as I thought I did.

Psalms 37:4 “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

The LORD has been so good to me.

~Al